Big East commissioner favors East-West division format

DALLAS – Big East commissioner Mike Aresco said Thursday plans for the conference’s divisional format could be completed by next month.

Aresco, who was in town for the UH-SMU football game, said he favors an East-West format for the 12-team football league in 2013.

In that scenario, Houston would likely join San Diego State, Boise State, SMU, Memphis and Temple to form the Western division and Rutgers, Connecticut, Louisville, Cincinnati, UCF and South Florida would form the Eastern Division.

“We’re certainly looking hard at an East-West concept,” Aresco said. “I want to keep the western schools together if I possibly can. It makes sense to minimize travel.”

Aresco said he could make a recommendation to the league’s athletic directors within the next month. From there it will go before the conference presidents for a vote.

The Big East will play a conference championship game beginning next season.

11 Responses

Temple would only be in the “West” (I really hope they use something like Atlantic and Pacific instead of East and West) for 2 years. Navy and another school join in 2015. Temple probably goes where they belong at that time. It would be even better if Navy backs out, with two Western schools like BYU and Fresno State joining instead, as this restores balance.

I understand that this will be the first go-‘roud while waiting for the new members to come onboard. But it would make so much more sense on every level to have Louisville in the West and let Temple be in the East where it would be close to teams such as UCONN and Rutgers. These are natural rivalries. Temple-Boise? That’s just dumb on the surface of it. For it’s part, Louisville has a strong history with UH and Memphis and that would renue old rivalries. But, that’s just logic.

I expect the conference to fill out at 14 teams eventually. In my own “best of all worlds” those far Western teams would stay in the MW and the Big East would fill out its membership with teams east of the Mississippi. This makes even more sense now that the AQ nonsense is over. Then you would have a Mountain West and a Big East which would be true western and eastern conferences. But that would be logical as well.

“I really hope they use something like Atlantic and Pacific instead of East and West.”

Putting Houston, SMU and Boise in the “Pacfic Division” makes as little sense as putting Cinncy and Louie in the “Atlantic Division”. Better try for something else. (But for heavan’s sake, not “Legends and Legacy”. Thats just sounds dumb.)

There was discussion coming out of Providence (lord, when will they move to NYC?!)in the summer about “interconference legacy rivalries”, whereby a team in one divison would play the same team in the other divison each year. In that case, it would make a lot more sense to split Cinncy and Louie as long as they play each other in fb and bb every year.

I wouldn’t count on AFA or USMA joining in the foreseeable future. If BYU would lighten-up on their TV deal they are the most likely.